The Pre-Reading Jitters, and the Magic Number

So, as I’m sure you know, because you have the date circled on your calendar and you’ve been counting off the days with little crossed-off X’s and you keep stroking the calendar and lovingly crooning “Sooooon” until your roommates get creeped out and ask you to stop –

Tomorrow’s the “Wayward Author Reading” featuring myself and Luna Lindsey. at Wayward Coffee House in Seattle at 8:00pm.

I’ve been doing these readings for years now — a surprising number of years, really, considering that I’m not a day over twenty-nine.  (Shut up. Well, okay, would you believe I have the skin of a twenty-nine-year-old? In a garment bag in the back of my closet?)

The thing is, no matter how much experience I have doing this, I always get — well, not stage fright exactly, because it’s not like I’m afraid to get up in front of an audience, but just kind of . . . pre-show jitters. A faint internal monologue that goes something like:

OH GOD NO ONE’S GOING TO SHOW UP, THEY’RE NOT SHARING THE INVITES, THEY WON’T BRING THEIR FRIENDS, EVERYONE HATES ME, I SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BORN, OH GOD WHY

. . . You know, like that.

It’s always hard to judge, even from RSVP’s, how many people are going to show up to any given event. Especially since this is Seattle. (Here’s a very Seattle sentence for you: I once had someone respond with “I will definitely try to be there!” Which sounds very positive and affirming without actually committing to anything whatsoever.) RSVP lists just give me a rough idea of how many people will be there — a certain percentage of people who said they’d definitely show up will inevitably space it, and a certain percentage of people who in fact planned to show up all along won’t actually think to say so ahead of time. It happens, you get used to it.

I’ve found, over time, that there’s a magic number in my head. So long as at least twenty-five people say they’re going to show up, then that’s great — I stop worrying.  Don’t know why.

All I can say is, we did indeed reach that magic number of RSVP’s a few minutes ago, and now I can relax for the evening.

Dunno if Luna is going to relax, mind you. She’s never done this before at all. So, if you’re in the Seattle area, do come by and listen to us, won’t you? I absolutely promise that any permanent damage will be mostly psychological.